Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One thing is clear: this is not much of a tea party. I know the parliamentary secretary is looking for an alternative form of engagement, but I do not recommend he looks to a role in the provision of high tea at the Windsor in that regard. What we see here is the supercharged rhetoric of the members opposite not matching the reality—the second time around. The last time we had this debate, the autumn repeal day—we talked about a bonfire. What we had was a bonfire of the vanity of the parliamentary secretary. It shows the priority of members opposite here that we are devoting today to ideology in place of substance. I think the member for Watson's contribution took us through that quite effectively. I did see the parliamentary secretary paying careful attention to the contribution of the shadow minister, as he should have done.

I was interested to follow the member for Reid's speech for a couple of reasons.

See this speech in context